


siúil, a rún: the dawning of the day

by Kells



Series: siúil, a rún: the Cold War AAU [6]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor - All Media Types
Genre: AAU, Alternate Universe, Cold War, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Female Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-10 06:32:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12293280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kells/pseuds/Kells
Summary: continuing the Cold War AU: Steph and Bucky look forward to welcoming the newest addition to their rag-tag family, Clint and Tony trail some kind of super soldier in New Mexico, and Tasha Romanova wonders how she can possibly fit into any part of the narrative





	1. Chapter 1

It must have been the storm that woke her- Natasha was still blinking uncertainly when another shout of thunder roared out, fierce and strangely close. She sat up slowly, tracking the rivulets forming and falling at her window, and would have stayed there spellbound by the rain if not for the slow, shuddering sigh that caught her attention from the other room.

“Yasha?”

There was no reply. Tasha stole noiselessly out of bed, reaching the door of her bedroom- which had once been his bedroom- just as lightning struck again. In the momentary flood of light, she had a brief, backlit view of her one-time trainer, hunched over at the kitchen table with his hands clenched into tight, self-loathing fists. She would have said his name again, but someone else spoke first.

“Easy, soldier.”

Of course Stephanie was there already, watching her husband with the steady, falsely calm compassion Natasha had first encountered in Budapest. “You’re okay. Just breathe deep.”

It was an allusion she had made before, some reference to that long-ago past Natasha only vaguely understood. It made Yasha smile, at least- his teeth flashed in the dark.

“Didn’t mean t’wake you.”

Stephanie laughed, just quietly, and crowded closer to kiss his forehead as if he were a child.

“You can always wake me. Should, even.”

“You need to rest,” he protested, but put an arm around her waist and pressed his cheek to the soft swell of her stomach. “Especially now.”

Natasha swallowed hard as her stomach churned unpleasantly. It did that, sometimes, when Yasha got that star-struck look in his eyes. “Sometimes I can’t believe this is for real.”

His voice was hushed, and just a little overawed. Stephanie smoothed a possessive hand along his jaw to cup his cheek protectively.

“I’ve got you. I promise we’re just fine.”

They were quiet for a while, sagging peaceably against each other while the storm raged outside. If either of them had any idea that Tasha was awake and watching, they gave no sign of it at all.  

“You’d stop me, though. If you had to.”

The next flash of lightning laid bare Steph’s shocked expression.

“Bucky-“

“Please, Stephanie.”

He had taken her hand and was cradling it carefully in his own, eyes on her rings rather than her face. “If I hurt either one’a you-“

“You won’t,” she snapped, not really at him. “You’d never.”

She took her hand back to lay claim to his shoulders. Maria Steves was the only one, Tasha had been sure even then, who’d ever been able to claim all Yasha’s attention quite that way.

“Listen to me, okay?”

Stephanie waited for her husband to nod, obedient as a schoolboy, before she went on. “Of course I won’t let anyone hurt this kid, I’ll promise you that as many times as you want.”

She was stroking his neck as if to keep him calm. It had helped, sometimes, on those interim nights Tasha wished they could all forget.

“But I’m not going to let anyone hurt you either, am I, so it’s not gonna go like that. It’s just not, Bucky.”

Tasha cringed in spite of herself- try as she might she could never seem to reconcile that unwieldy nickname with the man she’d met as Captain Kolchak. She didn’t mind it, exactly- and she did enjoy how it made Clint grin like it was a reward engineered just for him- but it never failed to make her feel left out, somehow, like Stephanie was reaching for a part of him Tasha had never known.

“Steph-“

“Hush.”

He fell silent obligingly; she took his hands and tugged him gently to his feet.

“You’re home now, okay?”

She drew him closer; he put his arms around her and dropped his head as if to breathe her in. “It’s really over, a chéadsearc.”

“Thank God for that,” he whispered, turning to kiss her neck. “Thank God for you, sweet girl.”

He smiled the secret smile that made Natasha’s gut twist.

“Sweet girls. How’d one poor sap ever get so lucky, huh?”

Steph hugged him tight, then let go again to take his hand.

“Luck’s got nothing to do with us. Come back to bed, a rún.”

He kissed her forehead instead of agreeing in words.

“I love you, Stephanie Maire, you know that?”

Her smile was flirtatious, youthful in a way Natasha got the impression Clint had yet to see from his beloved mentor.

“I had some idea, yeah.”

“Clever girl,” he accused, sounding nothing at all like the solemn soldier Tasha knew so well. “Clever, gorgeous, wicked-”

Their bedroom door shut with a decisive click. Another bolt of lightning flashed and fled as Natasha closed hers, too. She fell back against her pillows and stared up at the ceiling, trying to believe that she wasn’t trying not to cry.

The next thing she knew, Captain Kolchak was smiling at her, the way only he had ever smiled at her, as he lounged by the stage door with lush pink roses already in hand. Natasha reached for her bouquet, smiling the way she had only ever smiled at him, but instead of closing around their fine stems her hand closed around his soft leather glove as Yasha grinned a knowing grin and pulled her gently into a measured, carefully practiced waltz. She had been wrong before, Tasha realised- they weren’t outside at all, but on the polished dancefloor at one of those too-formal dinners they sometimes had to attend. The dance itself was easy, hardly a challenge compared to some of the routines she’d had to learn- and of course she had a partner who was both generous and good at what he did. Their eyes met, and she saw both pride and joy in her trainer’s warm expression- then his lips quirked, just slightly, and Captain Kolchak dipped his young protegée with far more finesse than anyone would have expected from Lukin’s still-enigmatic marksman of choice. Natasha laughed, surprised but not at all displeased, and dared to put her arms about his neck as he whirled her gently round. He’d never let her fall, she knew- but she wasn’t expecting him to freeze, silver-grey eyes going wide, as he caught sight of a smiling blonde in the middle distance.

“Anya?”

“No,” Maria Stevens said deliberately. “Not even a little bit, Buck.”

He didn’t let her fall- he let her go entirely. Natasha stood alone at the centre of that gleaming ballroom and watched her trainer’s hair turn dark as his smile grew gentle.

“Poor little ballerina.”

Her head jerked up- a slender boy who struck her as too young for the colonel’s uniform he wore regarded her coolly, too knowing by half. “He was yours once.”

“He still is,” Tasha protested without thinking. It wasn’t the same- they’d never been in competition. Her companion raised a delicate eyebrow, turning his head to watch with Natasha as _Bucky_ swung his wife around in a wild and joyful movement like she had never seen from  Yakov Kolchak in all the time they’d been closer than blood.  

“For how long?”

She sat up with a gasp just as a fresh shock of lightning split the sky.


	2. Chapter 2

Natasha emerged from her room the next day to find Yasha putting away the spoils from an early-morning raid on whatever farmer’s market Stephanie had found for them that week. His wife was next to him, already chopping vegetables for lunch. Before Natasha could say anything, Yasha turned to glare at the sound system Tony had set up just for them.

“This song is morbid, Stephanie.”

He bent to address his unborn child quite seriously. “Don’t worry about any country-men, okay- I’ll take them out myself if they look at your mam wrong. Not that she doesn’t have killer gams.”

“You’re a crazy person,” Stephanie complained, turning to kiss him firmly. “Did you just say ‘killer gams’?”

“I did as well,” her husband grinned, not at all repentant. He raised his eyes so he was smiling at Natasha too. “Morning, Tashen’ka.”

He slipped into Russian easily when she answered in it, teasing her gently about what she could have been doing all night to keep her in bed until ‘half the day was gone.’

“It was the rain,” Tasha protested, not entirely sure why she felt so defensive. “All that lightning- it’s not like at home.”

Neither of the others said a word, but Natasha felt a sudden chill descend.

“That’s not what I meant. Yasha-”

She was saved by a violent assault on the front door. Stephanie rolled her eyes, setting down her knife to answer it.

“It’s like he doesn’t know he’s had a key longer than we have,” she muttered, smiling quite warmly. “What, Ant’ny?”

It wasn’t Stark.

“Natalya,” the young colonel from Natasha’s dreams greeted her cordially. He seemed to click his heels, and then his fingers- a bright flash of light bloomed between them, and then engulfed the room.

“What-“

“You’re welcome.”

The stranger smiled, sharp and insidious, and disappeared without another word. When the light cleared, Tasha’s trainer had caught her arm in a careful, assessing grip.

“Tasha, thank God. Are you injured?”

She knew at once that something wasn’t right. Yasha’s expression was guarded, his manner brisk- he looked more like Lukin’s top man on duty than he had in years.

“Yasha? What did he-“

“Bucky!”

Yasha froze. Natasha turned her head before he did, in time to watch his wife dart between them to snatch up his left hand.

“Your arm- how did you-”

“Anya.”

Yasha’s gaze slid from his wife’s face to Tasha’s; there was a kind of unchecked panic in his eyes which Tasha had never seen before. “Have I given myself a concussion or can you see her too?”

“Is that Russian?”

Stephanie was watching them with her head cocked, eyes narrowed as she tried to understand. “Since when do you know Russian?”

Yasha couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from her stomach.

“You’re- are you-”

She shrugged slightly, expression wry.

“Looks like it, huh. God alone knows how- I guess that was sometime between fixing your arm and teaching you Russian?”

He nodded like it hurt, jaw clenched. Stephanie touched his cheek and frowned when he flinched. “What’s going on, a thaisce?”

“A chéadsearc,” Yasha whispered like he couldn’t help it. His wife’s eyes lit up; she asked her next question in Irish, but fell silent when he shook his head apologetically. “I think- I used to-“

“You definitely used to,” Stephanie snapped, tense and frustrated because of course she had no idea what to make of any of it. “This morning you used to. And neither one of us knew anything about a _baby_ , or your arm- and you were damned sure calling me _Steph_ because _that’s my name._ ”

“You’re wrong.”

Her head snapped up; Yasha kept his eyes fixed on their still-joined hands. “This morning I thought you were dead.”

_“What?”_

“He said-“

His voice shook. “I’ve seen the tape. They were so sure you couldn’t have-”

He bit his lip, turning away as his shoulders heaved. Of course Stephanie went with him, her hands coming up to frame his face like she had never stopped to wonder if he’d want her there.

“Don’t,” she pleaded, smoothing her thumbs along his jaw. “I’m right here, sweetheart.”

He breathed a strangled effort at her name, or one of them. When she moved to draw him closer, he collapsed against her with a ragged gasp.

“Hey, no.”

She steadied him gently, petting his hair like Tasha had seen her do in a dozen darkened rooms over the years. “I’ve got you. You’re okay, my love.”

He shuddered like the words were a physical shock, murmuring something desperate and unintelligible against her neck.

“I know, I know.”

She didn’t, though- for the first time Tasha was realizing how much it had mattered in an immediate and tangible way that Steph had always known everything she needed to while Yasha had been unable to tell her. “You just hang onto me for a minute. What’s Russian for Bucky, huh?”

He raised his head, bewildered; she cupped his cheek affectionately.

“What’m I supposed to call you, I mean.”

He smiled faintly.

“Yakov.”

“That’s like James, right?”

She kissed his cheek when he nodded. “I like it. You sure you’re not in any pain?”

Yasha gave a hollow, helpless bark of laughter. He looked utterly drained in a way Natasha had hoped never to see again.

“I’m not sure of anything, Anya.”

His eyes snapped to hers. “Steph.”

She laughed quietly, hugging him tight.

“I’m here,” she said, slowly and clearly so there could be no misunderstanding. “I love you. I don’t care what language you wake up speaking next, I’ll be here for that too. We’re gonna fix this, understand?”

Yasha raised an unsteady hand to tuck her hair back into place.

“If this isn’t real I’m going to lose my mind,” he said, in Russian. “Unless I have already, and this is-”

“It’s not.”

Tasha hadn’t meant to interrupt, but Stephanie couldn’t help and the despair in his voice was too awful to leave unchallenged. She smiled when he looked her way, trying not to shrink under his wife’s assessing gaze, and switched to English so they would both understand. “Lukin was lying to you from the start. She’s really here, Yasha.”

Stephanie scowled.

“Is your Lukin the reason we can’t get anything straight between us?”

For a moment Natasha was frighteningly tempted to say yes. It might be simpler, she thought, and if Stark could resolve whatever had been done to them before she had to tell either of them about the Red Room surely that would be the kindest way? As she hesitated, Stephanie turned to her husband.

“You sure about this girl."

He was, Yasha said at once. 

“I would have gone mad by now without this girl.”

He cocked his head at her, eyes warm. “What is it, Tasha?"

She couldn't lie to him- not right to his face, when he was watching her like  _that._

“It was that man. I think he- Yasha-"

Of course- _of course-_ that was when the real Stark took up pounding on their door.


	3. Chapter 3

Apparently Stark _did_ realise he had keys to the apartment. Yasha tucked his wife behind him, his face set for a fight, but before Tasha could take even one hesitant step towards the door Stark breezed in, already talking at a rate of knots with a grinning Clint bringing up the rear.

“Barneses! We come bearing the craziest news. Even for-“

He fell silent as he caught the captain’s deadly look. Stephanie, still grasping her husband’s left hand with both of her own, had her head cocked inquisitively as she glanced between Tasha and the newcomers.

“We know these guys,” she concluded; Tasha and Clint nodded on either side of Stark. Yasha turned his head, still looking very stern, to address Natasha privately.

“You trust these men?”

She smiled through a fresh wave of guilt and fear.

“I do. You do too. Both of you.”

Stephanie smiled as well; after a moment, Yasha stepped aside to let the others in.

“I’m sorry. I prefer to be careful about these things.”

His tone was more warning than contrite, but Stark just grinned.

“Fair enough. My name’s Tony- this kid is Clint. We used to work with your wife.”

“Yeah?”

Without her memories of the Red Room and its effects, Stephanie seemed to be finding her husband’s icy demeanour more disturbing than the friends she couldn’t recall. She smiled at Clint when he waved uncertainly, but her eyes kept darting back to Yasha’s shuttered expression. When it became clear that no one else was planning to speak, Stark went on in the same lighthearted voice. “This is going to sound strange as a first question, but go with me: what’s the last birthday you remember?”

Clint raised an eyebrow at Tasha over the engineer’s shoulder, but Stephanie answered readily enough.

“I was twenty-two in July.”

Tasha stiffened- that was her own age, and a good decade less than the answer she had been expecting. Yasha, too, was taken aback.

“I would have said twenty-seven.”

Clint opened his mouth and shut it again without making a sound.

“That helps.”

Stark was still smiling with an air of calm control Tasha had never realised he knew how to command. “Don’t worry about it- you’re both wrong anyway.”

Stephanie glared.

“On what planet is that _not_ something to worry about?”

Yasha laughed softly, resting his cheek against his wife’s hair for a moment. She reached up, utterly sure of him, and pulled him into a quick, fierce kiss that left Clint blushing and grinning at the same time.

“See,” Stark muttered, halfway into the master bedroom. “They’re fine. It’s all fine. We’re going to fix this just like we fixed it last time.”

Yasha raised an eyebrow in Clint’s direction.

“What do you know about the last time?”

Tasha had never seen a person look more literally petrified, but Clint did his best.

“I don’t- I mean- I think he means he’s dealt with memory manipulation before?”

It wasn’t entirely convincing, but Natasha could only imagine how Yasha would have reacted to the idea of his wife being reduced to a six-year-old without her consent. Normally she would have taken Clint’s hand or bumped his shoulder reassuringly, but as long as the iron curtain was back up she wasn’t sure it would help any of them for her to cross that line before Yasha was more at ease. Stephanie’s nudged her husband’s arm affectionately.

“Cool it, will you? This kid’s not gonna- g’na-”

She faltered, pressing her free hand to her chest. Yasha turned to steady her, his careful hands resting at her hips.

“What’s wrong, dearest?” 

“Dunno.”

Her face was flushed and frightened, her voice beginning to slur. “Don’t feel right s’d’nly.”

Stark appeared between them like a djinn appearing out of the mist.

“I can get you the best possible help,” he said quietly, looking mostly at Captain Kolchak. “It’s kind of a military outfit, okay, but they know more about your case history than any doctor we’re going to be able to brief today.”

“You trust them.”

“I do, you know?”

Yasha waited for Stephanie to nod before inclining his own head.

“Thank you.”

Tony smiled almost gently.

“Any time, Captain. I mean that.”

Yasha managed something like a smile in return. He had an arm around Stephanie’s waist, taking her weight as she swayed slightly on her feet.

“The baby-“

“Is fine. I promise.”

She leaned into his side, watching his face with tired, worried eyes.

“How can you promise that?”

Yasha took his wife’s hand and pressed it carefully to her belly.

“I can feel her heartbeat, here.”

He tapped a steady staccato rhythm against the back of her hand. “Like this.”

Stephanie flipped her hand to twine their fingers together.

“Thank God for whatever they did in those five years, huh.”

Her husband kissed her temple the way he always seemed to do when one or both of them was stressed.    

“If it’s what brought us here I’ll thank him any time you want. Come, dearest.”

He was half-carrying her by the time they got to the car. Natasha saw Clint exchange a worried look with Stark as they pulled out of the secluded parking lot, but Stephanie was in too much pain to pay much attention to how the city had changed since the last time she’d looked. Her eyes were squeezed shut and tearing slightly; her husband was rubbing her neck and murmuring endearments in a voice too low for anyone to understand.

“I wish you didn’t have t’look after me.”

Yasha kissed her shoulder tenderly.

“Zvesda moya, all I’ve ever wanted is to look after you.”

Stephanie smiled faintly.

“Still a sap,” she murmured with some satisfaction. “Wha’s it mean, zvesda moya?”

“My bright star,” her husband whispered as the others did their best to pretend they weren’t hanging onto every word. “Sum and source of all my joy.”

Her quiet laughter made the others smile as well as her husband.

“You’re so fancy in Russian.”

“Am I?”

She closed her eyes as he guided her back to rest.  

“’s nice. Too, I mean, not instead’a my one.”

Yasha kissed her hair by way of taking her word for all of it. By the time they got to the SHIELD outpost Stark had apparently called ahead, Stephanie was too sick to do more than scowl at the wheelchair they already had waiting for her. Some twenty minutes later, they were clustered around a low hospital cot while a youngish doctor frowned at the isotonic drink she had set in front of Stephanie.

“Drink it all, please- I’d like to get these numbers up before we go in.”

Yasha raised an eyebrow, just shy of scathing.  

“Isn’t it more a question of coming out than going in?”

“Hush, you.”

Stephanie elbowed her husband as if in reprimand, but Tasha thought she looked thoroughly charmed as she turned to the doctor. “‘m sorry ‘bout him.”

The women shared a smile, but Yasha’s steely expression only grew colder as the doctor stumbled through her explanation of the Caesarian section they thought might be imperative.

“How safe is that?”

“We can all but guarantee a safe delivery for the child.”

Clint gripped Tasha’s hand, hard, as Yasha stiffened visibly.   

“But not for her.”

His voice was deadly. “You’re asking us to choose.”

Stark cleared his throat, making shooing motions with his expressive hands when the doctor glanced nervously his way.

“Let’s give them a minute, okay? If it’s not going to make a difference we can at least them talk about it first.”

The doctor frowned at her charts for a good while before nodding tersely.  

“I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

Natasha glanced away, unwilling to focus on the raw compassion on Clint’s face, and found the colonel from that morning watching her from the other side of the glass wall that separated them from the hallway. He arched a manicured brow when their eyes met.

“Don’t look so down. You’re the one who wanted him to yourself.”

Tasha’s stomach lurched.

“How can you-“

“What’s that?”

Clint was watching the hallway behind her curiously; when Tasha turned, there was no one there. She took his hand, muttered something barely intelligible about coffee, and dragged him into the hallway.

“Tasha? You okay?”

“I think I’m going mad.”

She wasn’t sure why she thought he ought to know; it wasn’t like he could do anything about it. She rushed ahead before Clint took it into his head to explain that they were all experiencing this most recent misadventure with her. “I’ve been dreaming about this man- he’s KGB, a Colonel, I think, but his uniform isn’t like anything I’ve seen before. He was there this morning, before they-“

She gestured helplessly, well beyond putting a name to it. “And I know it’s insane but I would have sworn he was just here as well." 

For a moment he just stared. Tasha glanced away, restless and resentful. “I told you it was-”

“It’s not. I'm almost completely sure you're the sanest one here.”

He kissed her cheek, his manner suddenly brisk to the point of enthusiasm. “Stay with them, okay? We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

“What?”

“I have to talk to Stark- I’m pretty sure he knows a guy who can fix this.”

Tasha hadn’t thought she _could_ feel more disoriented than she already had.

“You’re not serious.”

He must have been, however- he was already ducking back in to talk to Stark. Only moments later they left together without a backward glance. Inside, the other two were talking quietly in low voices; as Tasha watched from beyond the glass, her trainer pulled his wife into a desperate embrace that looked too much like he really believed it could be their last. 


End file.
